1. Technical Field
Circuit detection systems and methods presented herein provide for determining circuit configurations, directional layouts and/or locations of circuits.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Circuit location and identification becomes increasingly difficult as the number of circuits increases and the circuits themselves become more complex. For example, large office buildings have exceptionally large electric and electronic cabling requirements. These cabling requirements of office buildings frequently change because the needs of the tenants often change. When a tenant desires a change in office space functionality (e.g., power, communications, lighting, etc.), an electrician is often tasked to reconfigure the cabling of the office building to accommodate the tenant's needs. The changing requirements of tenants often result in more complex circuits with certain lines therein becoming unidentifiable.
The changing needs for electric and electronic cabling are not limited to office buildings, however. Homes and industrial buildings also have changing requirements for electric and electronic cabling due to improvements and/or modifications to such structures. For example, a homeowner may wish to add another power outlet to a particular location in the home. As most homes are configured with at least one circuit breaker box in which many power lines are centrally connected, the homeowner (i.e. through the assistance of an electrician) may run a line from the desired power outlet to a circuit breaker within the breaker box. As is often the case in a circuit breaker box, correctly connecting this new line, and integrating it with existing lines, is difficult as lines are often unidentifiable and/or mislabeled.
Furthermore, even when a circuit's various nodes (e.g. outlets, junction boxes, routers, sinks and drains) are determined, it is often difficult to trace the path of the circuit. This difficulty arises out of the common practice of routing the circuit out of sight, for example, through walls, in ceilings, through basements and/or through attics. Therefore, even if a node of a circuit is known, the path that circuit takes to get to another node may be hard to discover. Some present techniques of determining a circuit configuration include, for example, making exploratory holes in walls or ceilings and/or making educated guesses as to the direction in which a circuit is oriented.
Other techniques for identifying circuit may include positioning a person (e.g., an electrician) at a circuit breaker box and another person at the power outlet. The person located at the power outlet may use a test device (e.g., a test light that plugs into the outlet) while the person positioned at the circuit breaker box arbitrarily “flips” circuit breakers until the person at the power outlet communicates that the circuit breaker has been identified. This process is a time-consuming process that utilizes multiple people and can remove power from a mission-critical circuit. Many organizations (e.g., those which run electronic business systems, electronic hospital systems, computing systems, etc.) simply cannot afford a power loss while a circuit breaker is being “flipped” or tested.
Similarly, many situations make tracing the path of an existing circuit to discover its routing and/or its extent via traditional means impractical. For example, some circuits are routed in construction features that are not easily removed, replaced and/or repaired.